Where has the Quebec gone that we all promised ourselves?

Quiz question: who said this? “People, they don’t call us at the county office to tell us about the voting method, they call us to say that they don’t have daycare places, that they don’t have a family doctor, that their school is hard, then there is a shortage of places, then there is traffic on the road, then the grocery store is expensive. That’s what they tell us. »

Could it be PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon? Solidarity co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois? Oh no. It is indeed the CAQ Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault.

Because this observation comes from a deputy prime minister and it is unflattering for her own government, let us admit that her lucidity is surprising.

Especially since she did it on Friday during a questioning of the leader of the PQ relating to “the unkept promises of the CAQ government since its election”. You can not make that up.

Voluntarily or not, the fact remains that Mme Guilbault has put his finger on a big problem. That of a Quebec whose public services are failing everywhere.

The Quiet Revolution had nevertheless delivered us a modern, humanist, equitable and open State to the world. Where has the Quebec gone that we all finally promised ourselves?

Nowadays, citizens feel abandoned by a hyper-bureaucratized system more concerned with protecting itself than taking care of people.

As proof: not a day goes by without yet another story of broken, and often dehumanized, public services making the headlines.

Housing crisis and homelessness

Just Monday, it was reported that thousands of social housing units have been on hold for ten years. Overwhelmed food banks are turning away people for the first time in 37 years.

That it takes more than 600 days to get a place in a CHSLD and that the worst is yet to come. Etc.

Not to mention the routine lack of access to a doctor. Clearly insufficient services for people with disabilities. From emergencies to inhumane waiting times.

Despite a commission of inquiry, a DPJ still dysfunctional. Dilapidated schools, hospitals and CHSLDs. Thousands of exhausted caregivers.

The school system is also the most unequal in Canada. The rise of private profit in health is worrying. More than 70% of home care employees’ time is spent on paperwork or on the road.

The housing crisis is getting worse. Homelessness is exploding. Across Quebec, more than 10,000 people are homeless, including more than 3,000 women.

Lying alone in a bus shelter

Thursday evening, in a bus shelter in the chic Plateau Mont-Royal, I saw a homeless woman, all alone. She was sleeping on the floor. His only source of warmth was a baby blanket from Dollarama. Where are we as a society?

In short, it is as if Quebec had become a huge waiting room for helpless citizens. Our national motto is no longer “I remember”, it is “I am still waiting on the waiting list”.

Meanwhile, we hear about pride…

None of this is obviously spontaneous generation under the CAQ. Except for a few rare good moves, including the creation of CPEs, since the last referendum, governments have all weakened public services.

The real problem, political and social, is that barring exceptions, the situation, instead of improving, continues to deteriorate.


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